Day 15 – Last Full Day

Sarah here with the blog for our last full holiday day.  Tomorrow is a travel day but I’m sure there will be one more blog coming our way.
Alan woke up delusional this morning when he thought I would climb the 272 steps to Batu Caves.  I told him he was dreamin’. Ok Darrell.

We left the hotel at 9.25am and immediately noticed that it was the hottest morning we’d had the entire trip. You really need a hat, Sarah.

We walked to the monorail and got it to KL Sentral and then found the information I had was correct, there is now a train to Batu Caves although it doesn’t appear on any of the rail maps and when you get the ticket it only says to Sentul which is four stops before Batu Caves and cost RM1.00 each.  Seems like the computer system hasn’t been updated with the new line.

Alan’s school friend, Calvin, said that Malaysians don’t use the train and he’s right.  It is all tourists and Indians. It is so slow, I can understand it. 

When we arrived at Batu Caves station, it is only a few minutes walk until you can see the big dude at the bottom of the stairs.  I was already pretty sure that I wasn’t going to climb them and once I saw how steep they were, it just confirmed it.  Sarah made it up 36 of the 272 stairs.

After a few photos with Alan clowning around (testing out if he could slide down the railing to get back – he couldn’t), he took off for the top, leaving me in the shade and a bit of a breeze. I thought it might be easier to slide back down the handrail rather than walking down all those stairs. Unfortunately there were big knobs in the way every so often. I was pleased to see I wasn’t the only one choosing not to climb and I struck up a conversation with a Iranian lady who was waiting for her husband to return.  She thought I was Russian! That's understandable. You do sound a bit Russian.

When Alan took off for his trek, there were no monkeys around but about 10 minutes later, tons of them started coming down the railing, many of them with little babies hanging to their chests.  So cute!









Alan had been gone a while and I started to get concerned.  After a previous episode of Alan not eating, climbing a set of stairs, having his blood pressure drop and him passing out, I worried that I might in fact have to climb the stairs and go looking for him. Thankfully, before that happened, I caught a glimpse of him coming back down and I was waiting for him with a bottle of cold water. When I was close to the top I remember thinking to myself that I really should have had something to eat and drink before making the climb. Oh well, no harm done. When you get to the top, up the 272 stairs, you then go a short way before heading down and then up yet more stairs which eventually brings you into a large cave area which looks up to the sky. There's also some temple thingy in there. And monkeys. And pigeons. And monkeys chasing pigeons.

A few more photos and a chat with an Australian couple and we were on our way back to the train station, not before we saw an elderly lady in a burka faint.  I don’t know how they get around totally dressed in black when it was 33 degrees with humidity at 92%,. At the top it was about 45 degrees and 150% humidity. My sunglasses kept fogging up in the cave.
The train ride back was RM2.00 each and was a painful trip where I think we could have walked faster, and that was when the train was going.  We must have come to a complete stop at least 6 times and NOT at the stations.

Finally happy to be off the train, we walked back to the monorail.  This was decidedly a lot busier than we had seen it and were wondering whether we’d be able to get off at Times Square but did manage to push our way out.  Seems pushing is the only way as ‘excuse me’ doesn’t work.

Times Square was huge.  We were there for a spot of lunch but also for Alan to ride the indoor rollercoaster, the Supersonic Odyssey which is the second longest indoor rollercoaster in the world. It also has a 48 lane bowling alley.

The shopping centre is spread out over 12 levels with over 1,000 stores. We hit the food hall on Level 10 but before deciding on what to eat, we took the opportunity to look into the entertainment area and, lucky we did, as we spied a Kenny Rogers Roasters restaurant so we headed down there to eat before facing the rollercoaster.  Probably not the smartest idea in the world.

Lunch was great, the service, however, was a little strange.  We ordered garlic bread, caesar salad, a ham, tomato, cucumber and mayonnaise sandwich on wholemeal for me and a 1/4 BBQ chicken with 3 side dishes for Alan and a milkshake each. I had said to Alan on the train that I wanted, for lunch, a ham salad sandwich and a chocolate milkshake. Both the meals came with a muffin and Alan ordered chocolate and banana.

We started to speculate what would come first and were surprised to learn, it was the muffins. Sarah scoffed at me when I suggested we might get the muffins first.  Then came Alan’s chicken and then we waited another 10 minutes before we got the garlic bread and the drinks.  Another 5 minutes later came my sandwich, because it takes 25 minutes to make a sandwich. The salad never arrived which was probably a good thing as Alan’s eyes were bigger than his stomach. I reckon I could have fitted it in. By the way, the muffins were amazing. We almost bought some more to bring back to the room but they would have gotten squished in my backpack. I could really go for a muffin or six right now.

After a quick bathroom break (some of us had been wanting to go for two hours but you can’t always find one when you need one) we headed for the rollercoaster, only to discover that you can’t just buy a ticket to the rollercoaster.  You have to buy a ticket that allows you access to the whole area and it wasn’t worth the money just so Alan could go on the rollercoaster.  That was his rationale.  I think it had more to do with the fact that he’d eaten enough for four people at lunch and wasn’t ready to see it again. My tummy hasn't been the best today so I don't think going upside down several times straight after a big meal would have been the best idea.

We returned to the monorail station to find it pretty packed but we managed, just, to get on the next one.  I was half concerned my butt was going to get stuck in the door.  Thankfully we only had one station to go because, whether we liked it or not, we were going out the door when it opened.  People do like to push.

It was now 2.30pm and the storm clouds were forming again so we returned to our room, having done everything in KL that we wanted to do.  I went and had a lovely swim before we retired for an afternoon nap, my first in about 8 days, very rare for me.

Dinner we again hit the hotel restaurant for a light snack.  Not sure how Alan had room for more food, but he did.  Again, we encountered strange service.  The lady who seated us gave us the menu for the expensive Italian restaurant and we had to ask for the cheaper menu. The drinks took forever and I had to eventually ask for water for the table when last night we were automatically given it and when it was brought, it was hot water in glasses.  I then had to ask for iced water and she seemed to get annoyed.  It was pretty much the last we saw of her and I eventually had to go up and refill the water glass myself.  We saw her off complaining to another staff member about us. The restaurant was a lot busier than last night. We were the first ones in there tonight but by the time we left it was probably half full.

We started with a caesar salad and for the first time, got beef bacon although we had seen it around.  We then both had fish and chips which was nice.

Before returning to the room we went to the lobby to see if we could get a definitive answer on how much it will cost to get to the airport tomorrow.  We’d had it quoted between RM80 and RM150. On the walk back to our hotel this afternoon there were a group of taxi drivers sitting outside their cars so I asked them how much it would cost. One of them replied RM50, but then his buddies nudged him and he looked at us and realised we were foreigners and the price changed to RM150. I looked into the high speed train but it was RM70 and we still had to get KL Sentral to get it and we weren’t going to try putting our bags on the monorail.  Thankfully we spoke to someone who gave us a direct quote of RM80 and has ordered it for us at 11am tomorrow although getting him to understand we wanted to be there at 12 midday, noon, lunchtime was a bit of an ordeal. Yes he seemed to think we'd be checking out at 11am but wanted the taxi at midnight.

Now all we have to do is pack, and hope that our towels from yesterday get a little drier before they go back into the suitcases.

I still don’t have my KL magnet yet for my collection.  We thought we might be able to get one at the little gift shop in the lobby but no.  They have no magnets but a surprisingly large quantity of KY Jelly, okay! Hopefully we will get one at the airport.

So tomorrow, 2.25pm flight to Singapore and a 7.55pm flight home, arriving in Sydney Sunday morning.  Can’t wait to see my kitties.